As commenter cba pointed out in my previous post on abuse of the memory of the Holocaust, the maligning of the Jews, at least in the UK, goes from bad to worse.

The once-respectable Sunday Times published today (Sunday) a cartoon that would have made Julius Streicher proud. He would have published it on the front page of Der Stuermer and Josef Goebels would have awarded the cartoonist, Gerald Scarfe, some kind of prize for excellence in antisemitism.

Honest Reporting has the story (and the cartoon if you have the stomach for it):

Antisemitic cartoon in the Sunday Times by Gerald Scarfe in “honour” of Holocaust Memorial Day

Israel’s security barrier (of which the vast majority is a fence and not a wall) is meant to protect Israeli civilians against Palestinian terrorism. In any case, the imagery of this cartoon amounts to a blood libel on a day when the millions of victims of the Holocaust are remembered.

In conversation with a friend of mine recently, I was asked, “Do you think in 200 years time, people will have forgotten the Holocaust, or believe that it was a myth?” I naively responded, “No. I believe there are enough good people in the world to ensure that doesn’t happen.” At the time, I would never have thought the editors of the Sunday Times were in amongst those who would seek, in true Der Sturmer fashion, to use Holocaust Memorial Day to publish a blood libel, and knowingly undermine the memory of one of the worst genocides ever.

It is gratifying to note the huge backfire this has caused the Sunday Times.

But for some reason The Sunday Times, of all papers, couldn’t hold off publishing Gerald Scarfe’s vile slur of a blood libel with its depiction of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a callous murderer of innocents, including Palestinian children.

[…]

But I am also grateful that although I deeply feel Jewish I, however, feel no religious obligation to dress as a more religious Jew and, therefore, exposing myself to the horrors of what the Sunday Times cartoon might compel a person with a violent bent towards Israel and/or Jewish people to carry out. Another Toulouse comes to mind.

“The Sunday Times has clearly lost its moral bearings publishing a cartoon with a blatantly anti-Semitic theme and motif which is a modern day evocation of the ancient ‘blood libel’ charge leveled at Jews,” Michael A. Salberg, ADL International Affairs Director told The Algemeiner. “There is nothing subtle about the caricatured image of Prime Minister Netanyahu using Palestinians and their blood to build a wall to ‘protect’ Israelis,” he added.

Salberg called for an immediate response from The Sunday Times saying, “The Sunday Times should be ashamed and should immediately apologize for its gross insensitivity.”

The ADL also made reference to the history of such gross portrayals of Jews and their role in fanning the hatred that led to their slaughter. “This is the stuff which historically justified hatred of Jews and led to the wholesale slaughter of Jews,” he said.

Adam Levick at CiFWatch berated the Sunday Times for publishing the cartoon and had some interesting suggestions for those who would abuse the memory of the Holocaust:

In light of the Sunday Times’ decision to publish a cartoon on Holocaust Memorial Day depicting a blood-lusting Jewish leader, as well as recent comments by British MP David Ward suggesting that, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Jews should learn to stop “inflicting atrocities on Palestinians”, as well as other routine debasements of Holocaust memory, here’s a simple, if counter-intuitive request to those who believe that the Holocaust means anything at all:Spare us your Holocaust pieties, your monuments, your memorials, museums and days of remembrance, and consider that, instead of honoring Jews murdered over 65 years ago, you may want to begin, instead, to honor Jews who are still among us.

[…]

You can not undo the horrors inflicted upon six million souls, but you can live your life with a steely determination to never again allow lethal, racist narratives about living Jews to go unchallenged, and to assiduously fight efforts to reintroduce such toxic calumnies into the “respectable” public discourse.

Via the ICANN email list run by Stuart Palmer, here are contact details for the Sunday Times for you to register your complaints:

The Sunday Times chose today, Holocaust Memorial Day, to run this cartoon. As Tom Gross notes, it is meant to be a day to help educate the younger generation about the Holocaust. Instead the newspaper ran a grotesque libel against the State of Israel.

Via Google Translate, the above smart-Alec commenter said the following:

It is my opinion, not anti-Semitic. Ivor Benson, writing in the Zionist Factor, said that “we do well to remember is that there is a chauvinist Zionist ambition edges humanity to the brink of another global catastrophe, and that his greatest weapon is the mind-numbing lie of anti-Semitism. “

1. zealous and aggressive patriotism or blind enthusiasm for military glory.
2. biased devotion to any group, attitude, or cause: religious chauvinism.

The above comment is itself antisemitic in that it accuses Zionism – the political movement of the Jewish people to build a homeland in Israel – of being “chauvinist”, as if no other political movement or nationality is devoted to its own cause. And if the commenter had ever visited Israel he would have seen the diverse nationalities thriving and living together.

The accusation against Zionism of edging humanity to the brink of another global catastrophe is another antisemitic trope. It accuses the Jews – for who else are Zionists but Jews? – of being uniquely evil and perverted, and uniquely persistent and insistent on destroying the world. For what purposes – no one has ever thought to expand on that twisted logic.

And the final whammy – that the Jews’, oops, sorry, the Zionists’ greatest weapon is the lying accusation of anti-Semitism. That particular piece of nastiness in effect means that the antisemites, the Jew-haters, can say what they want about the Jews and do whatever they want to the Jews. But if the Jews object and call out the haters for their words and actions, they are accused of “stifling free speech”, silencing dissent and all the other bla bla that you’ve all heard a million times. So the Jews have to both suffer the “slings and arrows” of anti-Semitism, and yet cannot object to it for fear of being accused of silencing precisely those insults – a logical fallacy if ever I heard one.

We have clearly reached a rather strange situation in which pro-Israeli Jews cannot, in many instances, attempt to defend Israel and her people against antisemitic attacks without being accused of doing so dishonestly. The argument as presented in some of the articles and their comments above is not that some individual Jews occasionally respond to provocation with unjustified accusations of antisemitism, as must sometimes happen because we are talking about fallible human beings after all. What is being claimed here is on an industrial scale; the assertion is in fact that in an organised manner, pro-Israeli Jews are deliberately and wrongly claiming that any criticism of Israel whatsoever is antisemitic. Jews are accused of cynically trying to make dishonest capital out of their real or, according to some, imagined suffering and that, of course, is one of the most ancient antisemitic calumnies around. In addition, Jews are accused of inflating and even fabricating antisemitism for political ends.

Rather than the case being that Jews are trying to shut down debate – and let’s be honest; there is zero evidence of that happening – it would seem that those anti-Israel campaigners who are exploiting arguments which sail rather too close to an antisemitic wind in their attempts to discredit, delegitimize and dehumanise Israelis are attempting to deflect criticism from genuine antiracists by launching a pre-emptive attack which is in itself antisemitic.

This flirt with antisemitism in order to promote liberal Left ideology is not only repugnant in its own right, it also opens the door to other groups with an anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish agenda such as the far Right or Islamist extremists; groups which the Left should be opposing rather than adopting their terminologies and ideas.

The claim that anti-Zionists are being ‘silenced’ is not only obviously untrue, but also clearly falls into the same category as complaints that Zionists are dishonestly using accusations of antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel. Both claims are no more than underhand tactics in an increasingly ugly campaign to undermine a sovereign state with wilful and shockingly frivolous disregard for the fate of its people….

Thank you for including the link & items to complain about.I thought I’d be sick when I saw the cartoon. It doesn’t matter if the Sunday times apologises-its too late ,everyones seen that cartoon & its registered in their minds.Perhaps the Jewish Chronicle could stop being so parve & produce a couple of cartoons about the realities of life here.

It’s davka because we’re not rioting and murdering that the antisemitic media feel free to smear us. They know we won’t actually do the things they accuse us of.

It’s like the Palestinians sending their children to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers. They know the troops won’t kill them – but that doesn’t stop them accusing the IDF of doing so. If they were so sure the IDF would kill their children they wouldn’t be sending them there in the first place.

Actually, knowing the Palestinians, they probably would, so scratch that. But you get my drift.

You’re such a clever clogs, you do love to post in foreign languages don’t you.

All I can see is a video of someone in a jeep and an outraged Arabic voice-over.

A google translate of the words under the video read:

Israeli occupation forces تنكل a young Palestinian identity is unknown, video has been taken by Israeli soldiers near the village enclave north of Jerusalem, about four years ago.
Translation Lance Abu shank

קטגוריה

חדשות ופוליטיקה
רישיון

רישיון YouTube סטנדרטי

Anyone calling the Israeli army “Israeli occupation forces” is immediately suspect in my eyes. They cannot possibly be speaking unbiasedly.

Secondly, this video was taken about 4 years ago.

So what’s your point? We were discussing violent Arab reactions to criticism of Islam. The IDF arresting a Palestinian is not connected at all. Please show me videos of Jews rioting worldwide in reaction to antisemitic cartoons.

Now if only the Muslims DID behave like us:

Here are IDF troops protecting Palestinians during PALESTINIAN rocket fire. Yeah, protecting them from their own people. I’d like to see your head explode over that one.

Rupert Murdoch has apologised for a Sunday Times cartoon depicting the Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu building a wall using blood-red mortar, an image Jewish leaders said was reminiscent of antisemitic propaganda.

[…]

Murdoch wrote on Twitter that the cartoonist, Gerald Scarfe – a veteran who frequently depicts blood in his work – did not reflect the paper’s editorial line. “Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon,” Murdoch tweeted.

Thank you Mr. Murdoch. You’re a mensch even if your editorial board isn’t.

To the commenter who calls himself Rosenberg, I’ve deleted your multiple posts on various threads and put you on moderation since you are spamming the same message over and over again. Once would have been fine, although you posted a serious comment on a humorous thread, but you have become boring and repetitious.